


Turnabout II: The Perfect Kiss

by Viridian5



Series: Addictions-Turnabout [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Bloodplay, Dark fic, Kink, M/M, Past Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-11-04
Updated: 1998-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:42:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's impossible to go on like nothing happened...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turnabout II: The Perfect Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "One Breath," "Anasazi," "Paper Clip," and "Grotesque."
> 
> Bobby McCain is mine. Touch him without my permission, and I'll gut you, then kill you. If he doesn't do it first.
> 
> If the flashback in "1. FALSE LIGHT" seems familiar, it's because I submitted it in rough form to the e-mail lists in July under the title "Turnabout Flashback: A Night Out."
> 
> I've had the kernel of this story in my head since July, and it's done at last! Woo-hoo! One less ghost haunting my brain... So this one's for Te, who started the ball rolling again by really wanting it. She's also my information source for all smoking and cigarette-related matters. I'm seriously allergic.
> 
> Thanks to Holmes for showing me the way to so many resources on Stockholm Syndrome, mind control, and exit counseling.
> 
> A huge thank you to the great and powerful Feklar for beta above and beyond the call of beta.

_"Now I know the perfect kiss is the kiss of death."_  
  -- "The Perfect Kiss" by New Order

1\. FALSE LIGHT  
_"Oh, I'll empty you;_  
_I'll empty you,_  
_As empty as a boy can be..."_  
  -- "Icing Sugar" by the Cure  
\---------------------------------------------

Mulder sat in his kitchen, idly flipping and catching a knife. It flew in hypnotic arcs and occasionally gleamed in the stray beams of morning sunlight that crept under the drawn blinds. He should be getting ready to leave for work, but he had gotten lost in the past again, something that had been happening to him more and more in the last week. Since Krycek...

Prior to his day and a half with Alex, Mulder had gone for years without a flashback. Now, they pulled him under again.

//Sitting on the floor near his chair, I snuggled in closer against Bobby's leg. "Almost done, Fox," he said with a grin. His computer cast moving shadows and light along his face. He telecommuted for his job, and work couldn't be set aside for love, no matter how true or intense.

//The waiting only made my excitement grow. We would be leaving the house tonight. _We_. I didn't care about the outside anymore, not when so many lying, treacherous people wasted its tainted space, but allowing me to go out with him suggested a new level of trust. He knew now that I wouldn't try to escape anymore.

//I touched the sheathed knife I had tucked in my waistband at the small of my back. Bobby loved knives, one company's in particular. Handles made of the same almost-indestructible material as bowling balls and football helmets, full tang, with the patented double-D design that had a sharp edge on every side of every tooth of the serrated blade. Dishwasher safe. They cut so cleanly and quickly.

//The knife training he now gave me also showed his growing trust. I liked to wear one as a reminder. That he let me also showed trust. He wore knives too.

//One long-fingered hand stroked my hair, moving in hypnotic circles, then trailed down my spine to the knife. I had learned to tell simply from his touch whether I had pleased him or not. Right now, I had. I quivered at his touch, his approval. He undid me so easily.

//Why not? He made me what I am.

//Bobby logged out, then got our jackets. He put mine on me. He still did everything for me, fed and dressed and bathed me, the same as when I was still his prisoner, still cuffed and helpless 24 hours a day. It made me feel treasured.

//The sleeves of the leather jacket, one of his, still smelling faintly of him, hid the marks on my wrists. Even with the padding, cuffs worn nonstop for a week left damage. The back of the jacket would hide the knife.

//He led me out into now-unfamiliar night air to the car, an old, huge, black Cadillac. He belted me in ever so solicitously. I settled into old leather upholstery and the strong cigarette smell, not so different from the one in the house.

//Bobby put a Du Maurier to my lips, grinning in the darkness when I caught one of his fingers and briefly sucked on it along with the cigarette. He gave me the lighter, another show of faith. Feeling a lump in my throat, I lit my own cigarette--delighting in the momentary, controlled flare of the fire I had always feared--and blew a smoke ring to make him happy.

//South Orange, New Jersey at 1 a.m. was far from deserted but lacked the density of people that Bobby hated. Yellow forsythia on the sides of the roads almost glowed even at night. Sign lights and streetlights blurred in my newly-sensitized eyes, now accustomed to the dimness of Bobby's house. If I saw the sun again, it might kill me immediately now, as if I were a vampire risen too soon from the dusky sanctuary of my coffin. As opposed to slowly, as the sun slowly killed us all with its once benign light. People had done that, made the sun deadly, through shortsightedness and greed. Only people shit where they live, as Bobby sometimes said.

//So Bobby went out grocery shopping in the dead of night. Even reclusive serial killers needed to eat.

//I immediately hated the 24-hour supermarket we stopped at. Bright, white fluorescent ceiling strips made the white walls glow and shimmer, hurting my eyes. How the hell did I ever accept this as normal? Bobby looked as uncomfortable as I felt, even as he stalked the aisles like a tiger on the hunt.

//I did take advantage of the light to look at him, since the house's dimness rarely let me see him entire, just in pieces. His eyes matched his hair, all a rich brown-black. I admired the prominent cheekbones you could almost cut yourself on. Lush, sensual lips that felt like heaven when pressed against your skin. His teeth... The lighting made his moon-pale skin glow. Dangerously handsome.

//Lately I had seen my own skin starting to pale to match him. It gave me a bright joy to think that my body had begun to change along with my mind, both transforming to better suit my love.

//So, in a scene of lunatic domesticity, the serial killer and his once-victim, now willing lover shopped together. He touched me occasionally, gestures that had a nervous still-there? quality that moved me, especially when still-there? became oh-yes and gained me a smile. He kissed me while we stood in the frozen food aisle, with my back against one of the cold doors and his tongue in my mouth, with his body pressed in all its heat against mine, our breath steaming in those rare seconds when our mouths parted.

//How could I ever go back?

//When we reached the checkout line, the bored looking cashier scanned our items in, while Bobby watched the monitor. Finally, he said, "That's on sale. The wrong price went in."

//"But the scanner says this is the price."

//"The scanner is wrong. Someone must not have reprogrammed it."

//Dim, bovine eyes looked us over with annoyance. "I'll have to call my manager." She used her microphone to put out a call for her supervisor. Meanwhile, we waited. And waited. She started to stare at us with such hatred. The bitch.

//I became ever more aware of the knife at my back. This bitch kept us here, in this horrible light, waiting, because Bobby was too smart to let the store cheat him. She had the nerve to try to make it out to be his fault.

//I thought of cutting a smile in her neck to make up for the one she should have had on her face for us, her customers. The image made me breathe a little faster, a little harder.

//I kept my face a bland mask, a talent from my past life that still served me. I couldn't kill her. Bobby didn't do that anymore, and I shouldn't start. Besides, this place was too open, and it might have security cameras.

//I felt Bobby looking at me and saw him smiling. He knew. Of course he knew. And he approved.

//The manager finally came by and fixed matters. As soon as we could, we walked quickly to the car with our bags. It started to rain as Bobby drove, and I smiled as the colored lights outside made the water droplets on the windows into tiny masterpieces of color and movement. Having Bobby trust me meant that I could sometimes go out of the house and reacquaint myself with color. My smile widened.

//Bobby used his remote control to open and close the gate for the car. Once he parked in the second garage, the one we actually used for the car, he turned to me and said, "You've been so good, Fox. So good because you kept faith with me." He leaned over and undid the fly on my jeans and pulled them down, carefully putting my knife aside. "So good because you thought of killing that bitch." He pulled my boxers away to reveal my already-hard cock. "So good because you knew why you shouldn't, and controlled yourself." He took it in his hot, wet mouth, at first teasing it with his teeth, before he deep-throated and starting to suck me with an irresistible pull.

//He was so good, knew my body so perfectly... This time I saw colors for an entirely different reason. I let myself make all the noises I wanted to, because I knew he liked that. After I came in a rush and he sucked until he had milked me completely, he asked huskily, "Do you know what I want to do now?"

//"Yes." I took the slick out of the jacket's interior pocket. I knew, and I wanted it as badly as he did.

//"My good, beautiful Fox, I do love you."

//I know, but I would never get tired of hearing it.

//He slicked his fingers and penetrated me, starting with two. My time with him--however long that was; I didn't know--had left me a bit sore, but I didn't mind. The slight pain gave the pleasure more edge.

//His fingers started to glide in and out in a hard, ruthless rhythm. I shamelessly spread my legs to give him easier access, even as I thanked his good sense in having a car the size of a boat. And a cock the size of... The feel of his knuckle scraping my prostate made me groan and remember to appreciate his fingers too.

//When he felt he'd driven me crazy enough and heard enough of my begging, he removed his fingers, sat back on the seat, and took off his own jeans. Then he pulled me onto his cock, neatly impaling me. If I had thought he had been ruthless and rough with his fingers, I now knew better. His frenzied thrusts echoed through my whole body, and I screamed my appreciation. My head hit the roof a few times. I moaned on every stroke and rode him even after he hit orgasm shuddering and crying my name.

//"Fox, I have something for you," he said when he could finally speak again. Before I could protest, he opened a shallow cut on the side of his neck with my knife. "I want you to drink from me."

//I needed no other encouragement. I put my lips to his blood and suckled with the single-minded need of a baby at its mother's breast. Warm and thick and raw, it sizzled on my tongue, even as the iron taste reminded me of the smell my hands used to get from using a childhood swing set. I teased the cut with my tongue just to feel him shiver. His heart pounded into my skin.

//I vaguely felt him slice open my wrist but knew instantly when he started to suck on it. I moaned against his throat. It left me in an awkward position, but the sensation left me completely unable to protest. We made a circuit, sharing one of Bobby's favorite things, until I started to feel woozy. He pulled away from my wrist and turned my head away from his cut. I breathed in great gasps, overwhelmed and dizzy.

//He licked his blood off my nose, and I chuckled. Bobby held me close and let me drift to sleep in the protective circle of his arms.

//I'm yours, Bobby. Yours forever.//

Mulder felt the knife resting lightly atop his wrist as a familiar and loving weight. Shuddering and smiling, Mulder opened his eyes to an empty kitchen. Bobby had been executed by lethal injection years ago, been killed by the last poison society had inflicted on him. Alex had run out a week ago, breaking his promise to stay. Mulder was completely alone.

Screaming, he threw the knife at the wall, focusing all his rage and pain in one place... The knife hit its pinpoint target perfectly with a deep, satisfying thunk! before sinking in to the hilt. Some things you never forgot.

//I'm Mulder again now. Fox died even before Bobby did, when they took me away from him. This is my life, and I was bearing it just fine before Alex... before _Krycek_ brought this all back to me. I got through it last time, and I'll get through it again. Alone...//

Mulder closed his eyes and slowed his breathing back to normal. Once he'd shifted his face into a perfect blank mask, he put on his coat and left for work.

******************************************************  
2\. DIMNESS  
_"He has always been so strange,_  
_I'd often thought he was deranged._  
_Pretending not to see his gun,_  
_I said, 'Let's go out and have some fun.'"_  
  -- "The Perfect Kiss" by New Order  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

As Alex Krycek studied Mulder's apartment, he shook his head. He'd never realized why Mulder kept his apartment and office so dim before. //God, Mulder, McCain really fucked you up bad. I wonder if you even realize...//

But Mulder had fucked Alex up in turn. It took only a day and half to hook him, addict him to Fox's strange brain and incredible sex whenever and however he wanted it, with the icing being that Fox always wanted it too... Hooked him on company and the thought of having a partner in all things... That time had also brought Alex's craving for cigarettes back in full force. Currently, it was for a lack of anything better to wrap his lips around.

He'd even picked up the Canadian brand Fox had mentioned, Du Maurier. They were subtle, yet strong, and even the paper reeked of ostentation. Plain white, and perfect in their firm roundness. //Much like you, Fox,// Alex thought with a bitter grin. Bobby McCain probably saw their unusually honest and direct warning indication--"Cigarettes can kill you."--as another reason to use them.

Alex's fingers stroked the red, black, and gold package in his pocket. Since they were about twice as expensive as regular cigs, he only smoked them once in a while. He'd had one before coming over.

The apartment's battered look--far worse than when he had last seen it as Mulder's partner--and the knife embedded in the kitchen wall suggested a soul in torment. //Are you missing me as badly as I'm missing you? You probably want me dead for the way I skipped out on you, but I had no choice...// Alex rapped the hilt of the knife, but it was embedded so deeply in the wall it didn't move. //Face it, Sasha, you were never interested in the easy things.//

Alex let himself out of the apartment and locked the door behind him. He'd set the bait, putting his plan in motion. He would see Fox Mulder again tonight.

One way or another, they would finish it.

******************************************************  
3\. FOG  
_"This friend of mine would fall apart."_  
   -- "The Perfect Kiss" by New Order  
\-------------------------------------------------------

"Good night, Mulder," Scully said, temporarily breaking him out of the abstraction that had consumed him almost all week.

The dullness faded from Mulder's hazel eyes, and, for a moment, he was fully _here_. "Good night, Scully," he said before he got his coat and left.

Just a banal scene, reenacted daily by co-workers across the nation. But most co-workers weren't staking out their peers, as Scully intended to do for the third night in a row.

She wished she could blame someone for things being this way, but there were too many candidates contributing too many pieces. The Consortium, for drugging Mulder's water to drive him insane and discredit him, for having his father murdered, for trying to kill him as well. Alex Krycek, for befriending him, betraying him, stealing the DAT tape Mulder had seen as his Holy Grail, then doing... whatever he had done to Mulder a week ago. Hell, just for being his rat-like self. Robert William McCain, for doing hideous things to Mulder six years ago, things she'd only found out about three days ago. That anonymous government employee, for sending her the file that told her what McCain had done and asking her to keep an eye on him, stop him from straying.

She wished to God she'd never seen that file.

Despite all the blacked-out lines, it told her more than enough about Mulder's kidnapping in 1989 and what a deranged serial killer had done to him for two weeks. Those black-outs were both blessing and curse: blessing in that she didn't have to read the actual details of the emotional, mental, physical, and sexual abuse her partner had faced, but curse in that they prompted her to imagine... The medical report still made her sick, but the pictures, taken right after they got Mulder back, were especially disturbing. The photos showed the madness in his eyes as well as the bruises and shallow slashes covering his body.

Mulder had survived by becoming just what his captor wanted. Gone Stockholm, he'd tried to fight off his rescuers. The Violent Crimes Unit got him released from the institution after five months, not because he'd healed or put the incident behind him, but because they'd wanted his profiling and case-solving talents back in use.

Thus, Mulder had been abused by everyone.

The person who'd sent her this file had implied that last week's escapade with Krycek had shaken something loose in Mulder. As much as the information in the file had horrified her, she had disagreed until she saw the note about Mulder developing a smoking habit during his captivity. Mulder had smelled strongly of cigarettes when she met up with him; it had mystified her at the time.

God knew Mulder already had more than enough excuses for a breakdown. Factoring in a regression to a traumatic experience Mulder had never fully recovered from could be the last straw that would break his mind.

She didn't know what the mysterious sender of the file expected her to do for Mulder. At work, she tried to draw him out of his fog and occasionally succeeded. At night, she staked out his apartment to see if he went anywhere, but he didn't; he just paced violently for hours inside, getting even less sleep than usual. She herself was working on so little sleep that Mulder had noticed something wrong, which she chose to see as an encouraging sign.

As Scully drove a few car-lengths behind him, she wondered if she would be able to do anything for him tonight.

******************************************************  
4\. TWILIGHT  
_"When you are alone at night,_  
_You search yourself for all the things_  
_That you believe are right._  
_If you give it all away,_  
_You throw away your only chance to be here today..."_  
  -- "The Perfect Kiss" by New Order  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mulder knew he was losing it. He'd even smelled Du Maurier cigarettes in his apartment when he came home tonight, which was impossible. He tore the safety seal off a bottle of water and took a deep swig. He wondered how that old woman who'd killed her husband was doing tonight. He and Scully had brought the drug-tainted water to the authorities' attention, but that poor woman would have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life. //I _know_ how she's doing tonight.//

Mulder wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered. At work, during the day, he could bury his problems under the rigors of his job, but at night, while home alone, shards of the past kept slicing through his shields. Memories successfully repressed for years forced themselves on him. His brief time with Krycek had left him caught in a twilight state between the Fox he had been for Bobby and the Mulder he had become to cope with life, with the FBI... with everything.

He helplessly remembered how it felt to have Bobby shave him with a straight razor, standing molded against his back, holding him, stroking the long blade of the razor gently, carefully //lovingly// over his skin. How the terror that caused him in the early days gradually changed to pleasure and a feeling of security. He remembered Bobby smiling at him guilelessly and saying, "Did you know my middle name is `William' too? It must be fate."

The next flash pulled Mulder under. //Maps littered the dining room table. Bobby stood behind me, nibbling at my ear, with left arm around my waist and right hand gripping my wrist, stroking with his thumb. My wrists still bore reddened chafe marks from my week in cuffs. He guided my hand over the maps until he would stop us and ask me to tell him where we landed.

//I always picked the closest exotic-sounding place names; they sounded like spells and made me wonder about their origins. Askew, Mississippi. Comity, New Hampshire. Spaces Corners, Pennsylvania. Loose Creek, Missouri. Bar Nunn, Wyoming. Big Sandy, Montana. Lovelock, Nevada. Ypsilant, North Dakota... My eyes traced the colored lines of roads, and the numbers made me think of an alchemist's formulae: Route 49 + I-59 = Route 11...

//"We can go anywhere we want, Fox. Anywhere at all. We'll travel the arteries of this country of ours and tease out all its secrets. We'll take over the world. Where do you want to go?"

//I thought of riding the roads in Bobby's big black Cadillac, free to go anywhere we wanted. That "we" was so special to me. I never had to be alone ever again. "I want to be wherever you are, Bobby."

//His mouth felt like a fever against my neck. "Sweet Fox... In another day and a half, we'll be gone from here, like a caterpillar leaving its cocoon to become a butterfly."

//Actually, the thought of leaving the house forever frightened me. It was my world. But Bobby made even terror arousing. If he wanted me to see the country, it would be a good thing.

//"You're a poet, but I like caterpillars too."

//"You do?"

//"They're fuzzy."

//His lips teased the short hair at the nape of my neck. "Fuzzy like this?"

//"Not quite," I moaned.

//He laid me down on the table, amid the crinkly maps, and started to unfasten my jeans. By his choice, I never wore underwear. Considering the way we were, it was only practical. I immediately spread my legs.

//His tongue toyed with the slit on the head of my cock. I whimpered, begging for more, and once again was amazed that he always knew what I wanted, the moment I wanted it.

//The maps rustled restlessly under me. The knife sheathed at my back pressed into my spine, and it was a good pain to go along with the wet fire licking at my cock. He was too good to me...

//"Why do you even bother dressing me?" I moaned.

//"Because it's so much fun undressing you."//

Lonely and disgusted with himself, Mulder pushed that memory away, but another immediately rose to take its place.

//We had fallen asleep with Bobby still inside me, filling me. He was so hard, so big... He completed me. I stretched in the warm dark, thrilled to feel his heat down the length of my back and the softness of the sheets beneath us.

//I had felt hollow for so long, I had stopped thinking about it. Until Bobby had shown me, I hadn't seen how to be happy, how to find joy in knowing your place. I had a place now. With him. Forever.

//"Fox..." he sighed against my hair.

//"I didn't mean to wake you, Bobby. I was just happy."

//"And I'm happy you're happy. There's something I want you to do for me, Pretty."

//"Anything. You know that."

//"I want you to fuck me."

//I turned his words over in my mind to see if I could find any alternate meaning. We'd _never_\-- "What?"

//"I want you, _need_ you, to fuck me. I want to feel you everywhere. I was saving myself for someone. Now I know it was for you."

//Tears stung my eyes. "Bobby..."

//"I want you." He pulled out of me and turned me to face him. "Give yourself to me."

//Deliriously happy and scared out of my wits, I feverishly set my mouth and hands all over his body. I knew it so well, but now I tried to know it differently. I would be his first, and I wanted it to be as incredible an experience for him as it was for me. Soon I had him hard and whimpering my name, begging me for it.

//I slicked my fingers and stroked in one at a time. He was so tight, but he pleaded for more. "Give it to me, Fox." So I did in a slow, gentle caress, but he urged me on with his hips until I was pistoning my hips and pulling his cock at the same time. I still couldn't believe what I was doing, but he felt so damned good...

//We came together, screaming, before curling up to sleep.//

As if the only memories Mulder had of that time were good ones. If he couldn't stop them from coming... While he had one so dark and painful he still couldn't access it, he found a smaller cruelty from the earlier days he could punish himself with....

//I woke up with my head ringing and the rusty taste of old blood in my mouth. As I struggled against the ropes that kept me tied to a chair, I choked under the heavy stench of incense, dust, and rot. I opened my eyes and saw my captor, his face an impressionistic rendering in white and long black under the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

//"Will you behave now, Fox? If I keep losing my temper, I might hit you too hard and kill you without meaning to."

//Wouldn't that be a shame? The last time he'd clocked me, it had been for protesting his use of my hated first name. I'd already learned not to do that... "I'll behave," I said, my voice rasping from my dried-out throat. The sound hurt, and made my head spin worse.

//Then I got a good look at his surroundings. I'd figured he had a trophy room. I was currently sitting in it. Corpses of men and women with dumbly staring glass eyes and skin like paper surrounded my captor and me like a thicket. One woman was so close to me I could see the thread that sewed her lips shut.

//I fought down bile. I'd seen things like this before, spent time among the mutilated dead as part of my job. But then, I had always been able to leave when I wanted...

//He smiled. "Just think. These are the ones who didn't disappoint me too badly. The ones who really pissed me off I ruined too seriously to preserve. But you profiled me, so you know what I'm capable of." He stroked my hair, and I fought a shudder. "I'm going to keep you, Fox. It's your choice how."

//I knew exactly what he was capable of.

//I had to survive. The ISU would be looking for me; _Patterson_ would be looking for me. If I kept my head down, figuring out ways to avoid setting my captor off, I might still be alive when my rescue came for me. Just play along, and keep my thoughts to myself. I... I didn't want to end up like this...

//He set the bulb swinging, and the jerking light, alternately revealing and concealing, made shadows leap on eye sockets and under cavernous cheekbones. It made the dead seem to move... I hated that scene with Mother in the basement in _Psycho_...

//He grinned. "Yeah, I saw that movie too." The swinging light made thick shadows bleed down his face from his eye sockets.

//I swallowed, revolted by the feeling that he'd read my mind. "I'll be good," I said softly. Anything to survive. "I'll be very good."

//"I'm sure you will, Fox. You're so smart. But I know this is sudden, so I want to make sure it sinks in." After he left the room, I heard a bolt lock fall into place. He left me alone. With the dead. Staring at me.

//At first I thought he'd be right back, but as time stretched, I realized that he wasn't coming back. Maybe not ever. Maybe he decided to skip some of the usual steps to keeping me as a trophy...

//I didn't know how long I was in there before I started to see the corpses moving even after the light had gone still, or how long before I started to scream.//

Shrieking, Mulder picked up a knife and threw it at the wall. It sunk in an inch away from the other one. He stared at it until it stopped quivering, using the sight to calm himself. //Damn you, Krycek. You promised, and you left me anyway... and I'll kill you for that. No, not for that! No, I'll kill you _because_ you brought all this back to me, and I'll do it as myself.//

Mulder heard someone by his front door, then the sound of fleeing footsteps. Gun in hand, he raced over, opened it, and looked out. He saw a child turn the corner. //At least I'm not so wired that I shot first. Shit, I'm a mess.//

A newspaper had been left on his doorstep. When he picked it up, a slip of paper fell out. It had a time, an address, and a single letter on it. "K."

//This is the last night of your miserable life.//

******************************************************

Scully watched Mulder get into his car, deviating from the routine she'd seen the last few nights. He'd changed into a black leather jacket, boots, and blue jeans. In light of the pictures of him and Robert McCain in that file, she couldn't help seeing his change of clothing as a bad sign. //I always liked the way he looked in jeans and leather. Have they always been a bad sign? God damn that file...//

She pulled out of her spot to follow him.

******************************************************  
5\. DARKNESS  
_"Then came by a friend of mine_  
_Suggested we go out together."_  
 -- "The Perfect Kiss" by New Order

_"A shiny love song, a quick incision."_  
  -- "Valentine" by the Sisters of Mercy  
\----------------------------------------------------------

Alex smoked and paced the warehouse floor. So many things could go wrong tonight. If he didn't juggle Fox and Mulder just right, he could end up very messily dead. //Maybe I'm being too negative. If I can just get him here, get him talking...// Alex took a long drag on his cigarette. //Sure, maybe I can get Mulder to see reason for the first time in his life.// Alex ducked just as a bullet whizzed overhead. //Then again...//

"Mulder, I just needed to talk to you, explain what happened last week!" Alex shouted from behind cover. Mulder was less likely to kill him than Fox.

"That's funny. I'm just here to kill you," Mulder answered. The next shot scraped the edge of the crate Alex hid behind.

"I understand! I know what happened to you!"

"You don't know shit."

//Well, Sasha, you got him here... in a full, irrational temper. What now?//

Mulder waited for Krycek to pop up and start shooting back, but it didn't happen. //How the hell am I supposed to kill you if you won't reveal yourself? Why aren't you firing back? Trying to make me crazier...// Mulder stealthily moved toward the crate Krycek hid behind.

***

Hearing gunshots, Scully drew her own gun and went into the warehouse.

***

//You betrayed me, you helped them take Scully, you killed my father, you made a promise, and you left me... I'm going to kill you. Try to hurt you until you hurt like I do, then kill you. Kill you, and then the pain will stop...// At that moment--the worst possible moment, as always--the memory Mulder had repressed the hardest broke loose.

//"That's very good, Fox. You're a natural with a knife. Beautiful. Remember, it's best to slash, because a stab may not kill, and then you might lose your weapon."

//I glowed under his praise and touch as he moved me through the knife exercises. My wrist movements were already noticeably smoother and more supple. His pride in me filled the empty spaces. He loved me like no one else in my life had ever loved me.

//"I can't wait to see you do this with a person, Fox. You haven't lived until you've seen skin split like ripe fruit, giving you its treasures, under your blade, until you've seen the light fade from a person's eyes because of you. There's nothing more intimate, and I want to share it with you. I'll have to find someone for you. When we move out--"

//I suddenly felt so ill and so lost I could only tackle the bad things one at a time. "Move?"

//"I want to show you the world."

//"But, this is home..."

//"We'll make a new home. It'll be an adventure."

//"And you want me to kill people?"

//"I know you wanted to kill that cashier last night. I was so proud."

//"But I didn't, and you said you were proud that I didn't. Bobby, you said you didn't have to kill anymore!" I cried. "Because of me! Because I stayed! You promised, but now you want us both to kill!"

//I never saw the slap coming. I slammed into the wall before tumbling to the floor, my head ringing and the taste of my own blood in my mouth. He hadn't hit me in such a long time. Horrified, I looked at him, and he looked so cold and so angry.

//I made him angry, made him hit me again, disappointed him... "I'm so sorry!" I shouted. "Please! I was wrong! Please don't leave me, don't hate me. I was wrong..." I would beg shamelessly if I had to.

//He sat down next to me but refused to touch me. "You were doing so well." He found my knife and sheathed it but wouldn't give it back to me. Oh, no....

//"I was wrong, Bobby, please forgive me. Please don't hate me..."

//"I don't hate you," he said softly, and I almost died in relief. "But I think you need some time to think about why I'm so angry." He pulled me up roughly by my arm and dragged me through the house by it. He stopped by the basement door.

//"Please, Bobby, I learned my lesson. Let me stay with you," I whimpered, beyond shame. "Don't send me to the basement. My father used to send--"

//He threw me through the open door. It seemed like I fell forever, bouncing off a step here and there, before hitting a dusty, carpeted floor. Winded and too stunned to hurt yet, I couldn't move. When he closed the door, all light left with him. I didn't mind the dark usually, but that was when I had him, warm and breathing, next to me. This darkness was too huge, too thick, too empty.

//I would do anything I had to, to get back into his good graces. Anything...//

******************************************************

Alex's stomach dropped when he heard the sob. //If I caused his breakdown, I'll never forgive myself.// Then a weight slammed him into the side of the crate and stole his air. Mulder, knife in hand, looked at him with glittering, almost mindless eyes. The older man bashed him against the crate with the strength of the insane.

"Fox, Mulder," Alex gasped. "You don't want to do this. This isn't you."

A little sense came back to Mulder's eyes, but not enough. He turned Alex's face with the side of the knife. It looked brutally sharp, so well-honed it could cut through skin and bone before the victim even realized it. "I'll do whatever I have to," Mulder said.

"Mulder!" Scully suddenly shouted, breaking Mulder out of his trance. Alex had never been so happy to hear that bitch's voice in his whole life. Before Mulder could turn on him again, he bashed the agent's head into the side of the crate, knocking the nut out

"I'm so sorry," Mulder whispered before he went under.

Alex sighed, but he had half-expected things to go like this. As he dragged his prize away, he ignored Scully's desperate calls for Mulder. //Good luck finding him.//

***************************************************  
6\. LIGHT  
_"You're delicious_  
_Dreaming_  
_Slack jawed_  
_Green eyed_  
_Rub my nose in_  
_Icing sugar_  
_Smooth as_  
_When this cold and deadly_  
_Blade_  
_Kisses the fruit_  
_So soft_  
_And gently breathing_  
_Under your skin"_  
  -- "Icing Sugar" by the Cure  
\-------------------------------------------------

Mulder came to in a bed wrapped in a secure, warm weight. //I'm not alone. Not alone...// One of his hands stroked through thick, soft hair while the other clenched in the T-shirt the man he held wore. He hadn't been restrained in any way, no cuffs or ropes. The lump pressing into his side and the pressure he felt as he flexed his wrists confirmed that he still wore all his weapons, the gun in its shoulder harness and knives in their sheaths at his wrists and back. It was an ostentatious show of trust. Only his jacket and boots had been removed.

Alex Krycek breathed against his neck. "Now do you see? I didn't want to run, but I was sure the other feds would take me in, and I couldn't allow that." Alex smelled of leather, metal, gunpowder, blood, Du Maurier and other cheaper cigarettes, and just of _Alex_, which Mulder remembered from their days as partners and from a too-brief idyll together a week ago. "I missed you."

It hurt, but it was a clean pain to say, "I missed you too, Alex." //And I almost killed you.//

Alex kissed him and stroked the length of his back through the dress shirt he still wore from his day at work, the only remaining remnant of Special Agent Fox Mulder here right now. "I know I can't be Bobby for you, Fox--"

Mulder thought of his last flash at the warehouse and shivered. "I don't want you to be Bobby. I was helpless in Bobby's hands; he could make me do anything, anything..." Alex sat back, watching him with bright eyes. Mulder sat up to meet him. "I didn't become the Fox he wanted, couldn't without him. I don't know what I am. But I want to find out, and I think you can help me..."

"I don't want you helpless. I want _you_."

"You know exactly what to say," Mulder said softly.

"It's a gift. What do you want me to call you?"

Alex knew enough to see how that mattered. Mulder wished he knew who he was right now. "Mulder. Fox. Both, neither. Make something up."

"A challenge. I do like challenges."

Their mouths met in a tangle of heat and want, exactly as Mulder remembered it from a week ago, but this time with both of them unfettered, with no dominance games. As they pressed together hungrily, Mulder arched as he felt the gun harness being slowly, sensually, unbuckled before it slid off. He took off Alex's T-shirt so he could toy with rosy nipples that had already gone hard to greet him.

"Nice knife sheaths. They look professional. Where the hell did you get these things?" Alex asked as he nibbled at Mulder's neck.

"It's amazing what you can order through the mail." Mulder took out a knife and smiled at the need shimmering in Alex's eyes.

"Cut me, Mulder. I want you to. I want you to mark me. Taste me. I miss your tongue. Please..."

"Soon. I want to play a bit first." Mulder traced Alex's body with the flat of the blade, warmed from being so close to his own. Alex closed his eyes and arched under the taunting caress of heated steel sliding over his skin with such a steady hand. The threat of mutilation from a misstep only seemed to inflame him more. His tongue flicked out over his wet, swollen lips as the metal rubbed against one nipple. Mulder wondered if he had looked //like such a whore// like that when Bobby had done the same...

//Bobby's gone forever. This is now.// Mulder shallowly sliced Alex's neck and watched in fascination as the blood slowly flowed down the younger man's chest in a red trickle. He licked the blade clean, savoring the raw, rich taste, while Alex shook like a racehorse waiting at the gate for the excitement to start, impatient to fly... Mulder lapped at the liquid that had pooled in the younger man's navel before licking up the muscled chest in hard strokes. Once he was confident he had gotten every spilled drop, he tongued the well it came from, teasing. He gloried in the iron richness spreading through his mouth, the source and cause of the pulse that beat so fast and strong under the smooth skin that caressed his lips. It became his pulse too.

Alex, lost in a blood and pleasure haze, bucked hard against him and made small begging noises deep in his throat. It made Mulder feel like he owned this man, but also like he was owned in turn. //I almost ended his life without ever knowing this feeling.// Mulder held the younger man tightly and started to suck at the wound in earnest, desperate to intensify the connection. He moved the flat of his knife up and down the other man's spine faster and faster. Alex gasped out encouragement or endearments in another language.

Mulder felt Alex unfastening both their jeans, freeing their cocks from an increasingly uncomfortable confinement, before stroking them both ruthlessly. He could feel the pulse that thundered through his and Alex's bodies also throb through their cocks and saw light bleed into his head at the edges of his vision. He heard and felt Alex convulse in orgasm before he fell into the brightness himself.

Alex shivered in his arms as they lightly stroked against one another. "Oh, God, Fox," Alex gasped as he unbuckled, with every indication of pleasure, the knife sheaths. Mulder let Alex do it; it made him feel cared for. "Did Bobby really do everything for you?"

"I see you read the file. You must have some contacts to have gotten the classified version," Mulder said and smiled as Alex stiffened. "It's okay. Yeah, he did. Fed me, dressed me, chose my clothes, bathed me, shaved me, brushed my hair, wiped my ass, held my dick for me..."

"Sorry, Mulder, but I want you to know that's really not my style. Well, maybe I'd like to do the feeding and bathing bit. Actually, the shaving, dressing, and hair-brushing might not be bad either..."

Mulder had noticed that Alex tended to go a little scattered after sex. He found it oddly endearing. "You want to try the `bathing bit' now?"

Alex smiled and pulled him out of bed. The bathroom, done in unfortunate shades of yellow and green, looked run-down and ancient, but clean. They seemed to be staying in a cheap hotel. In the light Mulder could see that he'd irreparably stained his white shirt with blood and semen. //I'm messy with Alex...//

Alex smirked. "You're a sloppy eater, Mulder. Maybe I should get you a bib."

"You weren't complaining a few minutes ago."

Alex's eyes glazed for a moment in memory before he started to strip Mulder, trailing his fingers over the skin he bared as he did so. He sighed as the older man reciprocated, and they were soon hard again and rocking against one another. He led his lover into the tub and turned on the spray. They shrieked as what felt like ice water drilled into their skins before he adjusted the temperature to something warmer. That first shock of cold was always a painful jolt, but Alex knew it sensitized the skin. His nerves buzzed pleasurably now, and every touch felt magnified.

Mulder stroked shampoo into Alex's hair and massaged his scalp, surprising him. He hadn't really thought they would be seriously washing one another when he'd agreed to the shower, but the older man's deft fingers felt so good. He did the same for Mulder. Rinsing off felt like performing an odd dance, the two of them dipping under the spray before coming up again. Then repeat, rinse, conditioner, rinse...

Alex was still laughing at the absurdity of it all when Mulder started to rub him all over with soapy hands. Again, Alex reciprocated, and they moved within one another's arms, slick skin to skin, mouth to mouth, erection to erection. The feel of the spray and the caresses sent pleasure sizzling through them.

Alex's hands played along Mulder's spine and stroked down his ass. Mulder groaned, then laughed as the younger man outside the curtain for a tube. "I like a man who comes prepared," Mulder said.

"Consider me your own personal Boy Scout." Alex gave himself a generous dollop before stroking two fingers up into Mulder, whose body rippled at the invasion. "You like that?" Alex asked.

"Yes, but I want more; I want _you_..." To underscore his point, Mulder grabbed the tube and stroked slick all along Alex's cock, alternating light touches with grasping pulls.

Unable to take anymore, Alex turned Mulder around and thrust in. Their last session had taken the edge off for him, so Alex decided to play a little. He took the older man with slow, gradual strokes, pulling almost all the way out with only the tip of the head still in, then pushing all the way in. The satiny warmth caressing his cock was just too good to rush this.

Mulder panted and tried to hurry things. He wiggled enticingly. He begged, using the words "please," "faster," and "Alex" in endless variations. He contracted his muscles around Alex's cock, trying to force the issue, which almost worked. In the meantime, it was sweet torture.

Alex stroked Mulder's cock once. "Naughty, Fox."

"Just fuck me, you bastard!"

"Say the magic word."

"I'll kill you!"

"That's not it."

"Please let me come, or I'll kill you," Mulder gasped.

"Close enough." Alex started to move, thrusting feverishly, and synchronized his strokes with the movement of his hand on Mulder's cock. Mulder came almost immediately, crying his name. The feel of the older man's body spasming against and around him wrung an orgasm out of him right after. Mulder leaned, panting, against the wall, and Alex leaned, also panting, against Mulder.

//Christmas came early, this year, and I'm still unwrapping my present.// Alex laughed weakly. //And I have Scully to thank for it and my continued existence.//

Mulder _squeezed_, and Alex almost blacked out. "What's so funny, Alex?" He sounded exhausted.

"Just trying to figure out who I should write my thank you note to."

"Mmmm."

Alex turned off the water and toweled them both dry. Mulder leaned heavily against him and sighed happily. He dragged the older man back to bed and curled possessively around the shower-warm body like a dog with a favorite bone. That image just made him laugh again. //Mine, mine, mine, mine, _mine_.//

But Alex couldn't sleep. He still couldn't quite believe that Mulder was here, tangled with him, sleepy and satisfied. He also worried about Mulder's mental state. //Well, more than I usually worry.//

Alex slowly stroked his lover's wrists and thought of spending a week in padded cuffs. He'd only been in cuffs for a day and a half, and he remembered how crazy it had made him, even despite the fun of having Fox taking care of him. In all ways.

Alex fell into a kind of sensual, meditative trance, caressing Mulder's wrists, so he didn't know how long it was before the older man murmured, "Alex?"

"Shit. I didn't mean to wake you up. You need some sleep," Alex whispered into his neck. //You look like you wore yourself into the ground over the last week.//

"'Sokay. I'm not really awake." Mulder's dreaming voice sounded soft and breathy, arousing even in its monotone.

"So I can take advantage of you?"

"I thought waking or sleeping didn't make a difference to your talents." Mulder rubbed his cheek against Alex's drying hair. "You're wondering about me."

"Wouldn't you, if you were me?"

"Am I supposed to be able to follow that now?"

"No."

"Do you really want more details?"

Something avid inside Alex leapt at the thought of secrets. He loved secrets... The file only had the highlights of Mulder's five-month stay in the institution. "Only if you want to give them." //Tell me, tell me, tell me...//

"It might be healthy for me to share."

"Sharing is a good thing."

"Thank you, Elmo. Ow! Pinching isn't a good thing..." The pinch failed to banish the soft sleepiness from Mulder's body and voice. Not that Alex minded. Sleepy Mulder made a nice, warm armful. "I'll tell you about the moment when I knew I'd turned the bend. Gone Stockholm."

Alex snuggled in closer. It was almost like getting ready for a bedtime story, though he doubted that any parent would tell the type of tale Mulder was going to get into.

"Bobby was raping me for the fourth time since I'd came to at the house. Rape because I didn't want him to, but the bastard always made me enjoy it once he started. He did everything for me, touched me almost 24 hours a day, so he could read me perfectly and knew exactly how to handle my body to get the desired response. Exactly. He was so good, knew what my body wanted before my conscious mind even did. It only made him more demonic to me, like some incubus or vampire come to drain my life...

"I tried to avoid doing anything to agitate him while still trying to keep my mind my own, but I could feel myself slipping. I knew he was training me, but it was so hard...

"He particularly enjoyed fucking me, so hard and deep and thorough." Alex felt himself getting hard and tried not to be obtrusive about it. It might upset Mulder. "I was lying there, cuffed to the headboard, moving and moaning under him like a depraved slut." Being unobtrusive got much more difficult. "I know all about how the body reacts to stimuli, but it didn't make me feel any cleaner. Lost under the pleasure, I tried to keep myself together by reciting my name, badge number, and birthday inside my head, but I kept losing track with each thrust.

"He realized that I wasn't all there and lost it. He started to slap me so hard my head rocked with each blow. I hit the headboard a few times. He was screaming at me, saying that he owned me and I damned well better be with him. Just when I started to blur and fade under the pain, he stopped and started to feverishly apologize.

"'I'm so sorry, Fox,' he said. 'I'm supposed to be strict but fair, not beating the shit out of you. I overreacted. I'm sorry. I love you. I love you.'

"He looked so distraught, and I started to say that it was okay, I was fine. Some part of me still had enough sense to be horrified that I was comforting my abuser for abusing me too hard, but that part had become too small and quiet. The sight of him in pain caused me pain.

"That made him so happy, and he rewarded me in his usual way: by going back to reaming me and giving me the kind of orgasm that blows the top off your skull. It was the beginning of the end for me." Mulder stroked Alex's cock. "I want you."

Alex's breath caught. "You're asleep."

"So I want you in my sleep. Take me."

"Take _me_."

That woke Mulder up a bit. "Alex?"

Alex took a tube of slick from the dresser and warmed a dollop in his hands. "I'll even do all the work." He rubbed it all over Mulder's stiff cock before straddling the heaving body beneath him. He looked deep into the other man's blazing eyes before impaling himself, smiling at the groan his action elicited. He pulled himself up a little, then slid back down the hard shaft, repeating the motion over and over, slowly gaining speed as Mulder began to thrust. Alex whimpered at the friction and pressure as they started a rhythm, and the older man's thrusts became harder.

Mulder started to stroke Alex's cock with an ease and confidence that usually came with familiarity. One of the advantages of fucking a man who had an eidetic memory? The deft touch, the bucking of the body beneath him, and the sweet, hard strokes of Mulder's cock within combined to make Alex scream as he came. Mulder soon followed.

As they rested side by side, sticky with one another, Mulder gasped, "You're beautiful, Alex. Thank you. Alex?"

Alex had gone out cold, looking sweetly innocent in his exhausted sleep. Mulder grinned and let himself sink down too.

******************************************************  
7\. STORM  
_"It seems like I've been here before._

_Confusion sprung up from devotion,_  
_A halo that covers my eyes._  
_It sprung from this first estrangement;_  
_No one have I ever despised._  
_Is this the way that you wanted to pay?_  
_Won't you show me, please show me the way?"_  
  -- "Everything's Gone Green" by New World Order  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The phone rang almost as soon as Dana Scully reached the office. Even though she knew Mulder would be more likely to contact her through her cell phone, she still quickly answered it with a hopeful, "Mulder?"

An unfamiliar voice said, "I'm afraid not, but I know where you can find him."

"Thank God. I can get a team to--"

"No, Agent Scully, this has to be you alone."

"I'm tired of these games--"

"If you care at all about Fox Mulder, you'll play along. You don't know what you might find when you get there. I don't either. It may be something that could get him reprimanded, fired, jailed, or institutionalized."

"Maybe he needs to be institutionalized. Maybe it would help him."

"With his enemies, do you really think he'd survive?"

"You know about the--"

"Yes. Only he can do this job right now. He would be the first person to put his welfare on the line to find the truth."

//That's what I'm afraid of.// "I don't like this or trust you--"

"You have no choice. Only you could remind him of his duty, to justice, to the truth, to his sister, to _himself_. It's the only way you can get the Mulder you know back. He's with Krycek right now. Just think of what Krycek could do with Mulder in this state."

Scully's mouth went dry at the thought. Mulder in the grip of another killer, the man who'd murdered his father... "Give me the location."

"I can do better than that."

******************************************************

Mulder awoke to the sound of a phone ringing, comforting in its familiarity. Just conscious enough to know that it sounded wrong for his cell phone, he picked up the phone beside his bed. A man's voice babbled something incomprehensible at him. "Mmmmm?" Mulder answered.

Alex took the receiver away and listened for a moment before he reached over Mulder to put it back on the hook and got out of bed. "I'll be right back, Fox. I don't want anyone tracing us." Mulder made a soft, aggrieved, fretting sound, so Alex kissed him. "Right back, I swear."

Alex reached for the wrong pair of jeans at first and was forced to wonder how a man reaching his late thirties could have such slim hips. //Not that I'm complaining, mind you, not at all...// He pulled on his own jeans, a T-shirt, his jacket, and a gun before heading for the door. He took one moment to look at Mulder, who currently appeared to be nothing more than a tortured twist of sheets, a long and elegant neck, and a spiky shock of chestnut hair. //Right back.//

Alex found a payphone five blocks away and called. "Kolya, what the hell are you calling me for?" he asked in Russian. He still checked in with Kolya once in a while, but Kolya calling him suggested something dire.

"Your supervisors are wondering if you've fixed your little problem and gotten back to your assignment," the man answered in the same.

"No. The old bastards decided I'm superfluous and tried to kill me. I don't see that changing anytime soon."

"Vasilyevitch wants to know how you're going to spy on the Americans if you can't get anywhere near them."

"I realize that's a problem," Alex said, keeping the growl from his voice only with great effort.

"Maybe if you had something of value to offer them, that would change."

For a moment, Alex thought of Mulder... //No.// "I'll think of something." Maybe he'd have a shot if he found another way of using the DAT tape against them. It was worth some thought.

"If you don't make things right, Sasha, the Americans aren't going to be the only ones trying to kill you."

"I understand that."

"I'm running interference for you, fighting for you, but I don't have that much power. Don't disappoint us." The phone clicked as Kolya hung up.

Alex spent the walk back calming himself; he didn't want to bring this homicidal rage back home to Mulder. He'd achieved the proper attitude by the time he opened the door, but that changed when he looked into the room and didn't see the older man. //Oh, shit, what--//

"Hi, Alex."

Alex spun to see Mulder leaning against the wall behind the door with a knife in each hand. He didn't have to ask what Mulder had intended; if he had been anyone else coming through that door he'd be dead right now. Instead, Alex asked, "You got dressed?"

Mulder actually only wore his jeans. "Unless I was going to offer an intruder my body as a distraction or bribe, yeah." He yawned, and the sleepy heaviness returned to his eyes now that he knew it was safe.

Too bad Mulder was wrong. Alex started to pack his and Mulder's meager belongings. "We have to go. You can sleep in the car."

******************************************************

Scully watched Krycek drag a dazed and worn-out looking Mulder out of the building. She waited until the traitor had settled Mulder into the car before screaming, "Don't move, Krycek!"

Of course he moved and went for his gun. Now feeling completely justified for using lethal force, Scully smiled a little as her finger pulled the trigger. Krycek managed to move, turning an intended heart-shot into a shoulder wound. The impact staggered him, but he picked himself up, ran for cover behind the edge of the building, and returned fire.

When Scully ducked behind the open car door, she saw Mulder coming to in the passenger seat. He asked, "Scully, what's--"

"Stay down, Mulder!"

******************************************************

As blood gushed down his chest, Alex realized a few things. One, Kolya had betrayed him. He had another name to put on his hit list, and he would have to lay low for a while after this. Two, his wound was too serious to keep this gunfight going much longer. He could already feel himself getting light-headed. That bitch could shoot. She'd gotten the drop on him so easily he felt like a total ass, and she'd obviously intended to shoot to kill, despite every feeb regulation to the contrary, from the very beginning. Three, killing Mulder's treasured partner in front of him would lose his affection, maybe forever.

Conclusion: he would have to run and abandon Mulder. Again.

//Godammit! I can't keep doing this to him. I'll be back when I can, Fox, I swear...//

Working purely on adrenaline, Alex pushed aside a box, revealing an open basement window. He slid through and put the boards back up behind him. No one would realize where he'd disappeared to, and he could use the other exit to get himself out. He would be able to save his hide.

His heart... his heart was another matter.

******************************************************

When Krycek had stopped firing for five minutes, Scully decided to check the alley out. It would have been nice to have Mulder as backup, but he looked too lost, and she wasn't sure if she could trust him with it. "Stay there, Mulder!" she said. She saw it as a sign of something very wrong when he obediently complied.

She ran along the wall before giving the alley a quick eyeballing and going in gun-first. She searched it for ten minutes, but the bastard had disappeared without even being considerate enough to leave a blood trail.

Mulder came running up, gun in hand. For a moment, from the look in his eye, she thought he might use it on her. Then he was Mulder again and asked, "Where--"

"He disappeared. I know I hit him, so we should put out a notice to local hospitals--"

Mulder looked so torn. He couldn't even speak, just look around in distress. It broke her heart.

"Mulder... I know about Robert McCain." His eyes squeezed shut. "Whatever happened with you and Krycek is a direct result of what McCain... did to you. You're not to blame." He couldn't look at her. "Mulder, I'm here to support you. And so is someone else. The person who tipped me on your location said that the work you're doing to reveal the conspirators and uncover the truth is vital."

Scully could almost see Mulder patching an identity together in front of her. He looked more like himself afterwards. "Thanks, Scully." His voice sounded thick with an emotion she couldn't identify.

"You're welcome, Mulder." She prayed they'd never have to talk about this again.

******************************************************

Mulder sat in the passenger seat and ripped into himself. But what could he have done? Shot Scully? Shot Alex? Left with an impossible choice, he'd gone passive. Just like Bobby had trained him to.

Mulder kept swinging from rage to despair. //What I most want, I can't have.// As much as it hurt that Alex had run again, Mulder certainly couldn't blame him. Alex had been given an impossible choice too.

Mulder thought of searching for Alex, but Scully's ambush would make him go deep into hiding. All attempts to find him right after Scully's abduction had been fruitless. It would probably be the same this time too. Not that it would stop Mulder from trying.

//But what would we have done anyway? Would I have turned outlaw with him, or gone on a killing spree as his partner, as Bobby had intended? We have no future...//

Mulder looked at Scully, who'd gone in alone to try to save him. She couldn't have known he didn't want to be saved. She'd mentioned his quest for the truth, and he thought of all the things that went along with that: loyalty, duty... and Samantha.

//I'm wearing one of Alex's shirts, like I wore Bobby's-- I forgot who I was, got lost in someone else _again_. I can't keep letting this happen.

//But I miss Alex already...//

******************************************************  
8\. SMOKE  
_"There'll be times_  
_When my crimes_  
_Will seem almost unforgivable._  
_I give in to sin,_  
_Because you have to make this life livable..."_  
  -- "Strangelove" by Depeche Mode  
\------------------------------------------------------------------

"Does this get us even?" Patterson asked.

"Not yet."

"I should have guessed." Patterson took on a defiant look. It was rather amusing. "Fox needs help. I don't care what kind of handle you think his trauma gives you on him. It's been mutating in his head for years now, and only God knows how it has twisted in that time."

"I talked him out of killing me once. I know exactly how to handle him."

Patterson walked out in anger, but he would do what he was told next time too. Fox Mulder was one of his exploitable weaknesses.

Fox Mulder seemed to serve that purpose for a number of people.

He was also a master of bad timing. He was supposed to have fallen for Krycek while they were partners. Once that happened, Alex would have revealed his true nature slowly, drawing Fox further into the web. The right dash of Bobby McCain's killer instinct combined with Fox's brains and bond to Krycek would have eventually made him a valued Consortium operative.

But events had moved too quickly and forced Krycek to alienate him. Fox bonding with a free-agent Krycek now didn't suit his plans at all.

At least as they were now. //But I'll find a way to exploit this. Everyone and everything is vulnerable to manipulation...// He took a long drag on his cigarette and settled back to consider possibilities.

### End


End file.
